The legacy of Ken Block: Travis Pastrana and more on the loss of a racing icon

Travis Pastrana couldn’t believe the news. Ken Block was a larger-than-life figure in the action sports industry, so when Pastrana got a call telling him of Block’s death in a snowmobile accident, he had a hard time comprehending it.

Days later, Pastrana, like so many, remains in disbelief.

“It’s tough, to say the very absolute least — which is the understatement of the year,” Pastrana told The Athletic on Wednesday.

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Block was riding up a steep slope in a Utah forest on Monday when his snowmobile upended and landed on him, the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Block is survived by his wife, Lucy, and three children, Lia, Kira, and Mika. Both Lucy and Lia competed with Ken in rally races sanctioned by the American Rally Association Championship.

Before becoming a star in the motorsports and action sports worlds, Block founded the popular skateboarding brand DC Shoes in 1994. It was only after selling the company 10 years later that he made an abrupt career change by embarking on a racing career that would see him go on to earn a multitude of podium finishes in rallying competitions that included the X Games, World RallyCross, Global RallyCross, Rally America and the World Rally Championship.

In addition to Block’s success on rally courses and drifting circuits, he created the Hoonigan YouTube channel that featured him performing various Gymkhana stunts behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. The channel, named after a motorsports media and apparel company cofounded by Block, is recognized as the most viewed within the motorsports sphere, with numerous videos amassing more than a billion combined views. The most-viewed video, showcasing Block stunt driving through the streets of Los Angeles, has been watched over 58 million times.

Pastrana frequently stars in Hoonigan-produced videos, the most recent one released two weeks ago where he is shown stunt driving and drifting on a tightly confined course. Although he and Block were separated in age by nearly 20 years, they were close friends, collaborators, teammates and competitors.

The charisma, driving acumen and marketing wizardry exhibited by Block was a catalyst that significantly heightened the popularity of rallying and drifting in the United States, turning Block into a widely respected figure throughout motorsports.

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“Ken Block was at the heart of, especially in the U.S., but really rally in general and so many eyeballs to it and keeping the sport going forward,” Pastrana said. “Rally will always survive, but Ken got it mainstream. He got us into the X Games, he got us RallyCross really off the ground with Gymkhana.

“The sport lost a lot. And, of course, his family lost a lot as well. It’s disappointing.”

Block was an inspiration to a generation that witnessed what he accomplished and wanted to emulate it for themselves.

IndyCar driver Conor Daly cited Block as the reason for, when he was 16, wanting his first car to be a Subaru, the brand that sponsored Block. Across social media, tributes were posted by countless drivers representing a wide range of motorsports disciplines, including messages from NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano, 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi, former Formula One world champion Jenson Button and legendary Supercross rider Ricky Carmichael.

“The one thing that I think was so cool about Ken was just him taking everything to a level that no one had really seen before,” Daly told The Athletic. “Like, when it came to the YouTube videos and what he was doing with road cars, that was stuff you’ve never really seen before on the internet. “The first two Gymkhana videos, I didn’t know what Gymkhana even was, but I could not stop watching the videos. And it was the coolest thing ever. The look was cool. The firesuits that he wore were cool. Monster Energy was cool. Everything was like, ‘Well, I want to be that guy.’

“And it’s not like he was an IndyCar driver or Formula One driver, he was just a racer, and it was just the coolest stuff ever. Then it went so viral. And then everything he was doing, even with the rally racing, seemed really cool. I don’t really remember anyone that kind of made such an impact in the driving community, in the car world, like he did. You see it from all the people tweeting about it and putting up stuff on Instagram where you have every single Formula One driver, every single NASCAR driver, so many IndyCar drivers who all just thought Ken Block was just a bad— dude.”

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Formula Drift competitor Ken Gushi remembers becoming transfixed by Block when as a young kid he attended a race Block was in. Later, Gushi, 36, who finished eighth in the Formula Drift Pro standings in 2022, would race against Block in various events.

“You’re just so starstruck by someone like him,” Gushi told The Athletic. “And I guess that just proves how much of a big, not just a driver he was, but as a big person and inspiration he was to many of us.

“Ken was always that iconic figure that we strive to become in that professional level of motorsports, not just as the racecar driver but as an inspiration to this generation of the automotive youth. He connected kids that were not originally into motorsports and tied that in with lifestyle through the Hoonigan brand and DC. And so in that sense, he had a very charismatic style that didn’t just attract one genre of kids and fans but appealed to so many.”

“He lived a life very well lived and a life that he affected so many people in a positive way,” Pastrana said. “… That’s why it makes it even more sad that he’s gone too soon.”

(Top photo of Block in 2015: Brian Cleary / Getty Images)